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Source: (consider it) Thread: The bible is a horror story
Raptor Eye
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quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Have you read Job? It says Job was a God-fearing man. The children? Not so much. They were given to partying. It says that Jobe would daily offer sacrifice to God on behalf of his children in case they had sinned or cursed God. Fact is, I think they all got killed while partying.

But, then again, I don't take the story of Job literally. There are maybe two sections in Job that are biographical Job 1:1-5 and probably the last chapter of Job in which his wealth is restored. Okay, he probably did not live for 140 years.

What happens in between is a dramatic play or reading.

It is much like a movie in a way. Just because you see people depicted as being killed, in reality, you know they are not.

As Job is considered to be 'wisdom' literature, I'd be surprised if any part of it is meant to be biographical.

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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10

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George Spigot

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So it's just bad wisdom then?
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Martin60
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Not for the time, no. And far from it timelessly.

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Love wins

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George Spigot

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In that case what exactly is the nature of this wisdom the book teaches?
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Alyosha
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
In that case what exactly is the nature of this wisdom the book teaches?

The same as the horror stories: 'Don't piss off the devil'.
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Martin60
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Have you seen the hippo?

In other words: 'Trust me, I've got it all covered.'.

It's got NOTHING to do with the Devil.

[ 19. May 2015, 12:11: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

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Love wins

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Alyosha
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Have you seen the hippo?

In other words: 'Trust me, I've got it all covered.'.

It's got NOTHING to do with the Devil.

I understand that God's answer to Job's suffering lament is for him to look at nature (and there is a kind of solace in that), but how is this not God ducking the questions? Or reversing them?

The atheists say that Job reveals that suffering happens because God makes a bet with the devil. What kind of meaning can be found in that?

The Christians say that it reveals that God will only allow the devil to inflict suffering if God allows it.

And when suffering comes, the answer from God - we are to look at nature and consider God's brilliance? God is undoubtedly brilliant in all that he does and creates (apart from sharks), but what kind of answer is that?

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Gwai
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
In that case what exactly is the nature of this wisdom the book teaches?

Perhaps think in the long term, so long that it's way beyond your comprehension long term.

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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.


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George Spigot

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quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
In that case what exactly is the nature of this wisdom the book teaches?

Perhaps think in the long term, so long that it's way beyond your comprehension long term.
Um....what?

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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
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George Spigot

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How do you think about something that's beyond comprehension?

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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html

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Gwai
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If you are implying that's impossible, yes. Isn't the only impossible thing the bible teaches. (Love your neighbor as yourself, etc.)

If I was too terse, and that made no sense: I'd take God as a simple example of a concept way beyond our comprehension. The god of the bible seems pretty clearly to be way beyond human comprehension but we can think of God without needing to understand all of God.

Having lost all his family, I doubt a person in Job's place would feel suddenly happy and safe to know that it was okay and God would give him a new family. I imagine would have serious terror of losing them again. So in any sense of long term that Job can imagine it is NOT okay. He may love his new spouse and children, and be pleased with his new stuff, but if he is any kind of parent at all, it is NOT okay that all his children were killed. In other words, from a human perspective tragedies loom big. And Job works well to me as a parable about how we lack perspective because from a large-scale--say global perspective--the loss of a family is a drop in the bucket. Any God who sees the whole world can care immensely, but if God was incapacitated by tragedy the way we are, she'd be literally crazy by now

I compare too-longterm-to-comprehend perspective to my actual perspective by thinking of the way my perception of time has changed over the years. I have a memory from young childhood of a walk that took FOREVER. I mean this was the longest damn walk ever, and I strongly remember that feeling. Except apparently my family walked once around one single block. Or as a lonely teenager, I felt I would be unhappy always and was probably destined to be lonely forever. Which was true for definitions of forever well under one decade. The death of a child sounds from my current perspective as a complete tragedy, and I'm sure it would not be something I'd ever "get over." But from the perspective of someone who can see the whole world? Children die all the time. Nasty, brutish, and short, and all. In the true long term we are all forgotten at least by humankind, and the death of one family does not make a long term tragedy on a global timeline.

So in a somewhat Zen style, I suspect that if I could get that kind of perspective on my problems, they wouldn't seem so bad!

--------------------
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.


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Martin60
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God isn't saying, 'Look at nature.'.

In response to our completely understandable rage at Him, He says 'Have you seen the hippo?'. I just LOVE that.

He's saying look at MY cosmos. It's as it has to be. That your good may come of it. There are no short cuts. Be kind.

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Love wins

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rolyn
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
He's saying look at MY cosmos. It's as it has to be. That your good may come of it.

The news was rattling on radio yesterday--every hour, and every half hour. People dying, people dead, people doing horrible things to each other. Natural disasters heaping misery on people with nothing but the cloth they wear.

I said to God "Can't you stop this?" (because it'll make me feel better if You did).... He said 'Nope'.

Maybe that's why the Bible is as it is.

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Change is the only certainty of existence

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Martin60
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Thank GOD I'm not alone rolyn!

He CAN'T. WE can.

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Love wins

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Demas
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Thank GOD I'm not alone rolyn!

He CAN'T. WE can.

Then maybe he should worship us.

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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray

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George Spigot

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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
He's saying look at MY cosmos. It's as it has to be. That your good may come of it.

The news was rattling on radio yesterday--every hour, and every half hour. People dying, people dead, people doing horrible things to each other. Natural disasters heaping misery on people with nothing but the cloth they wear.

I said to God "Can't you stop this?" (because it'll make me feel better if You did).... He said 'Nope'.

Maybe that's why the Bible is as it is.

The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering peoole.

[ 20. May 2015, 08:41: Message edited by: George Spigot ]

--------------------
C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html

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Helen-Eva
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Helen-Eva. Why does it trouble you?

Sorry for not replying sooner - I posted something then went away for the weekend and forgot to check for any replies - very rude of me - sorry.

I said:
What troubles me is not the horror in the Bible but the times that appear to endorse injustice - the deaths of Job's first children - what did they do wrong? The women who are put forward to be raped to save male guests. The vast quantity of people Joshua & Co finished off etc etc.

To expand on what I meant: it troubles me that the Bible seems to support some acts of violence and injustice. There's a cognitive dissonance for me between the message of salvation, redemption and love and the implication that savagery and injustice was right [or at least OK] on some occasions in the Old Testament.

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I thought the radio 3 announcer said "Weber" but it turned out to be Webern. Story of my life.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering peoole.

I don't see much difference, to be honest. If God decides when each and every person dies, then his direct intervention in certain notable cases doesn't seem to represent a major ethical problem - you still end up dead, and God still holds the strings and remains Lord and Master of all.
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Stetson
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering peoole.

I don't see much difference, to be honest. If God decides when each and every person dies, then his direct intervention in certain notable cases doesn't seem to represent a major ethical problem - you still end up dead, and God still holds the strings and remains Lord and Master of all.
Yeah, I've thought about that line of reasoning before.

However, when God punished the people of Sodom And Gommorah, for example, I think we are meant to understand that he was a bit more "involved" in the situation than he would have been had a volcano just erupted as part of the natural course of the created world.

I'm going to guess that the people who wrote the Old Testament did not quite subscribe to the "God Of The Philosophers", and hence probably believed that some things that happened in the world were beyond his control, until he chose to jump in with a direct intervention.

[ 20. May 2015, 23:37: Message edited by: Stetson ]

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Martin60
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Helen-Eva. You couldn't do rude on a bad day. I on the other hand ... you encapsulate what most modern Christians feel.

For 40 years I believed The Bible with barely a metanarrative. Now I believe its thousand years of stories of ten thousand years of oral tradition of a million years of language of a billion years of the story of evolution, all God breathed.

It's ALL stuff we make up under the ineffable, deftest prompting, Zen nodding of unseen, unfelt, unheard, invokable God.

--------------------
Love wins

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering peoole.

I don't see much difference, to be honest. If God decides when each and every person dies, then his direct intervention in certain notable cases doesn't seem to represent a major ethical problem - you still end up dead, and God still holds the strings and remains Lord and Master of all.
Well, let's see if you still don't see the difference if a voice from heaven says "Svit, I didn't like what you did last night, so I'm killing your kids."

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:

To expand on what I meant: it troubles me that the Bible seems to support some acts of violence and injustice. There's a cognitive dissonance for me between the message of salvation, redemption and love and the implication that savagery and injustice was right [or at least OK] on some occasions in the Old Testament.

I don't think such savagery at all unusual in the late Bronze Age. OT folk attributed such acts to God. That doesn't mean they were. God 'did' and 'said' many horrendous things in the OT - it's the way they saw Him, not the way He is. Jesus showed us the way He is, I think.

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IconiumBound
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Originally posted by Martin60
quote:
For 40 years I believed The Bible with barely a metanarrative. Now I believe its thousand years of stories of ten thousand years of oral tradition of a million years of language of a billion years of the story of evolution, all God breathed.

It's ALL stuff we make up under the ineffable, deftest prompting, Zen nodding of unseen, unfelt, unheard, invokable God.

So,is the Bible about God or about us? And, if about us, is it still considered sacred?
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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering peoole.

I don't see much difference, to be honest. If God decides when each and every person dies, then his direct intervention in certain notable cases doesn't seem to represent a major ethical problem - you still end up dead, and God still holds the strings and remains Lord and Master of all.
Well, let's see if you still don't see the difference if a voice from heaven says "Svit, I didn't like what you did last night, so I'm killing your kids."
Well, would it be preferable if my kids suddenly died in a car crash without my getting any particular call from God first? Only if none of the family then ask the silly question 'Why us?' perhaps.

Of course, if the alternative is that my kids live to a ripe old age, then that's obviously preferable!

As it happens, though, I have no kids. Maybe I'd find it easier to become an atheist if I did.

[ 21. May 2015, 17:21: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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rolyn
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering people.

I know George, and it is a bit of a choker by modern-day standards.

An infinitely compassionate, Loving and ever-Merciful Lord decides to squish folks for reasons that aren't always specific? Surely that is difficult and contradictory to the point of saying -- Why in heck does anyone bother with such literature?

Is it that we cannot comprehend how things were during the time Bible was written, a time when superstition, brutality, famine and plagues were the norm. Not cars, TV, jet-planes and the general comforts and freedoms we now take for granted.

The very crux of the Bible seems to be that people back then *cried out*, the same way as people cry out now. It's the human condition that disturbs us, horror et al. Now whether we've created a God to mirror ourselves, or whether (S)He's created us to mirror itself? Hmmm, that is the real biggie.

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Change is the only certainty of existence

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The thing is in the case of Jobs family. And the Egyptian first born. And David's child we are not talking about humans hurting humans or natural disasters. We are talking about God directly intervening and murdering peoole.

I don't see much difference, to be honest. If God decides when each and every person dies, then his direct intervention in certain notable cases doesn't seem to represent a major ethical problem - you still end up dead, and God still holds the strings and remains Lord and Master of all.
Well, let's see if you still don't see the difference if a voice from heaven says "Svit, I didn't like what you did last night, so I'm killing your kids."
Well, would it be preferable if my kids suddenly died in a car crash without my getting any particular call from God first?
Yes, it fucking would be preferable. At least that way there's a chance God could be with me in the tragedy, rather than actually being the cause of it. Massive, massive, difference.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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SvitlanaV2
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God engineered the death of his own son, but we don't take that as a sign that he didn't care....

Surely, being visited by God to be told that the life of one's child is required isn't necessarily a sign of God's abandonment; abandonment would surely be indicated by utter silence, a complete spiritual vacuum. Why would God bother to reveal himself unambiguously to someone whom he'd completely rejected? There would hardly be any point.

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Gwai
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Seconded, I'd much rather hear it personally from God, telling me that he knew it was a shame, but it had to happen then just hearing nothing and then he's dead. The second has made many people lose faith.

--------------------
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.


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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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If God told me he was taking things out on my kids for what I'd done, his rejecting me wouldn't be the issue. I'd be rejecting him, the bastard.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Alisdair
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@ Kelly Alves

Amen to that---the power of story and the vitality of communication.

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Alisdair
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@ Karl: Liberal Backslider

But, the sins of the fathers are visited on their children, and their children's children! We see it every day as the consequences of the choices people make ripple outwards and through the succeeding generations.

Don't blame God, but do call God a realist: if I leap off a tall building gravity is going to take its toll on me, but don't blame God for the decision I made to render my children fatherless, and for the impact of that even to impact on their children, etc.

God's response, it seems is not to magic up a large fluffy mattress. Instead we have blood and gore and misery and fear, and the reality of love that does not shy away, or pretend that everything is lovely, but instead remains true, and accessible.

We are the horror, and we tar God liberally with the horror that we make, and we wail that it isn't fair that beliefs and the actions have consequences.

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Stetson
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
God engineered the death of his own son, but we don't take that as a sign that he didn't care....


This might betray a certain modalism on my part, but I've always assumed that the idea of the Incarnation would mean that God himself was feeling the pain of the passion and crucifixion.

Which is a bit different than God just loafing around in the celestials, carpet-bombing earth with plagues and fire in retribution for various transgressions, some of which amount to little more than affronts against his own ego.

[ 21. May 2015, 20:32: Message edited by: Stetson ]

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balaam

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quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Originally posted by Martin60
quote:
For 40 years I believed The Bible with barely a metanarrative. Now I believe its thousand years of stories of ten thousand years of oral tradition of a million years of language of a billion years of the story of evolution, all God breathed.

It's ALL stuff we make up under the ineffable, deftest prompting, Zen nodding of unseen, unfelt, unheard, invokable God.

So,is the Bible about God or about us? And, if about us, is it still considered sacred?
It is about God abd it is about us.

It is what God says about people, what people say about God, what people say about people and what God says about God. All mixed up in a story which is philosophy and poetry and prophesy all wrapped up in a story about a community's relationship with other people and with God.

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Martin60
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quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Originally posted by Martin60
quote:
For 40 years I believed The Bible with barely a metanarrative. Now I believe its thousand years of stories of ten thousand years of oral tradition of a million years of language of a billion years of the story of evolution, all God breathed.

It's ALL stuff we make up under the ineffable, deftest prompting, Zen nodding of unseen, unfelt, unheard, invokable God.

So,is the Bible about God or about us? And, if about us, is it still considered sacred?
What balaam said:

Both. Yes, and profane.

[ 21. May 2015, 21:10: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

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Love wins

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Ikkyu
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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
@ Karl: Liberal Backslider

But, the sins of the fathers are visited on their children, and their children's children! We see it every day as the consequences of the choices people make ripple outwards and through the succeeding generations.

Don't blame God, but do call God a realist: if I leap off a tall building gravity is going to take its toll on me, but don't blame God for the decision I made to render my children fatherless, and for the impact of that even to impact on their children, etc.

God's response, it seems is not to magic up a large fluffy mattress. Instead we have blood and gore and misery and fear, and the reality of love that does not shy away, or pretend that everything is lovely, but instead remains true, and accessible.

We are the horror, and we tar God liberally with the horror that we make, and we wail that it isn't fair that beliefs and the actions have consequences.

In which way is this different from No god?
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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
We are the horror, and we tar God liberally with the horror that we make, and we wail that it isn't fair that beliefs and the actions have consequences.

Okay, explain crib death at one month old to me please. An infant that age can't do much more than cry, suck and poop. I doubt the child had any beliefs.
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Martin60
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# 368

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It's because its MOTHER ate that apple 6000 years ago.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Alisdair
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# 15837

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First up, I don't pretend to know more than any of us, so this is just my take.

How do you expect a 'loving' God to behave in reality? Should 'love' put a mattress out to catch the wilful suicide, stop the ebola virus infecting one but not another, prevent the virus ever forming in the first place, ban illness of any description. Surely the logic is clear; where would you draw the line---no one under the age of six months may come to any harm? Tough luck on us as we tip over the threshold.

We can't have it both ways. We either have 'Love' which sets the beloved free to face all the consequences of a world where 'freedom' and 'love' and 'fear', etc. actually mean something; or, we opt for a truly horrific world where those concepts mean nothing, but we are subject to the whims of an arbitrary puppet master.

If this is all there is---the 'world' of our physical senses, then it seems ultimately to be pointless. We are merely the random products of entropy, and that's it and all it ever can be. However high/low we go it adds up to zero in the end.

If, however, this is just a part of what is. A sandbox maybe, where we can actually learn and grow and become part of what truly is, then 'the horror' remains, but it is put in its place, or as John put it rather more elegantly: 'the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it'.

Perhaps it matters that we truly are free to make up our minds about 'love' and 'life', 'fear' and 'death', and to live accordingly.

[ 22. May 2015, 07:06: Message edited by: Alisdair ]

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
@ Karl: Liberal Backslider

But, the sins of the fathers are visited on their children, and their children's children! We see it every day as the consequences of the choices people make ripple outwards and through the succeeding generations.

That things we do affect our children negatively does not make it a good thing that God should go out of his way to make it happen.

quote:
Don't blame God, but do call God a realist: if I leap off a tall building gravity is going to take its toll on me, but don't blame God for the decision I made to render my children fatherless, and for the impact of that even to impact on their children, etc.
Way to miss the point. We're talking here about God saying "right, you did that, so I'm going to kill your kids to get to you." - a la David in the OT. that's the action of a psychopathic, sadistic bastard, not a God.

quote:
God's response, it seems is not to magic up a large fluffy mattress. Instead we have blood and gore and misery and fear, and the reality of love that does not shy away, or pretend that everything is lovely, but instead remains true, and accessible.

We are the horror, and we tar God liberally with the horror that we make, and we wail that it isn't fair that beliefs and the actions have consequences.

This isn't about God not putting mattresses in the way. This is about the idea that God goes and pushes someone else off the building because he's pissed off about what I did.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Komensky
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# 8675

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Actually, Karl, God is much nastier than that. He would then suggest, after having you killed, that your enemies kill your family and neighbours, but keep your young girls as sex slaves. Nice!

Divine Command theory is fun.

K.

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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

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George Spigot

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# 253

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quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
Actually, Karl, God is much nastier than that. He would then suggest, after having you killed, that your enemies kill your family and neighbours, but keep your young girls as sex slaves. Nice!

Divine Command theory is fun.

K.

Then he makes everything better by giving you a brand new wife and children. Because.....ones as good as another I guess?
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Alisdair
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You seem to be taking the view that God wrote the books of the Bible, but it was human beings who wrote their understanding of what they experienced.

There's no 'magic' going on here. If God is then God works with what is, which includes our understandings of God, in their times and places.

If 'Love' is in an absolute form then it remains true to its nature regardless of how we choose to interpret or disregard it.

So, saying that 'The Lord commanded that all be slaughtered' or whatever is a 'human' interpretation of reality, however much it may misunderstand or distort the reality of what 'Love' actually requires, or, for that matter, what are the true consequences of 'sin'.

People kill each other, and justify their actions in all sorts of ways. Does Love then turn away, arbitrarily intervene to prevent the atrocity, or act to clarify that 'It wasn't Love wot done it'?

Christ at his trial and execution gives us some clue about the manner of Love's way before injustice, hatred, fear, and misunderstanding.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
You seem to be taking the view that God wrote the books of the Bible, but it was human beings who wrote their understanding of what they experienced.

Personally, I'm pointing out that if we do that, we end up with a God who's a homicidal psychopath. I therefore conclude we should not do so.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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George Spigot

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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
You seem to be taking the view that God wrote the books of the Bible, but it was human beings who wrote their understanding of what they experienced.

There's no 'magic' going on here. If God is then God works with what is, which includes our understandings of God, in their times and places.

If 'Love' is in an absolute form then it remains true to its nature regardless of how we choose to interpret or disregard it.

So, saying that 'The Lord commanded that all be slaughtered' or whatever is a 'human' interpretation of reality, however much it may misunderstand or distort the reality of what 'Love' actually requires, or, for that matter, what are the true consequences of 'sin'.

People kill each other, and justify their actions in all sorts of ways. Does Love then turn away, arbitrarily intervene to prevent the atrocity, or act to clarify that 'It wasn't Love wot done it'?

Christ at his trial and execution gives us some clue about the manner of Love's way before injustice, hatred, fear, and misunderstanding.

Right. Which kind of brings this argument around full circle. What are we meant to learn from all this. On the one hand we are told that the bible is at the very least inspired by God and is a source of wisdom. On the other hand we are told that God didn't actually do that people just wrote that he did.

Pretty lame.

SvitlanaV2
quote:
God engineered the death of his own son, but we don't take that as a sign that he didn't care....
I take it as a sign of either evil or mental sickness. No matter what the problem is murdering someone isn't any way to solve it and it's a terrible example to set.

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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html

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Komensky
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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
You seem to be taking the view that God wrote the books of the Bible, but it was human beings who wrote their understanding of what they experienced.

There's no 'magic' going on here. If God is then God works with what is, which includes our understandings of God, in their times and places.

If 'Love' is in an absolute form then it remains true to its nature regardless of how we choose to interpret or disregard it.

So, saying that 'The Lord commanded that all be slaughtered' or whatever is a 'human' interpretation of reality, however much it may misunderstand or distort the reality of what 'Love' actually requires, or, for that matter, what are the true consequences of 'sin'.

People kill each other, and justify their actions in all sorts of ways. Does Love then turn away, arbitrarily intervene to prevent the atrocity, or act to clarify that 'It wasn't Love wot done it'?

Christ at his trial and execution gives us some clue about the manner of Love's way before injustice, hatred, fear, and misunderstanding.

I think your argument here is commonly found—that is, the Bible was not written by God. However, there are still large parts of Christianity that believe that some or all of it was written by God. Once you accept that some of it was written by God, you have your work cut out for you in deciding which bits. To be fair, most Christians I know just say 'the good bits!'. You can't blame them for that.

K.

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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

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Alisdair
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I'm not saying God was uninvolved in 'the Bible', but that does not require any bizarre notions of automatic writing.

'The Spirit goes where it wills', and the Spirit of God works within and through us---we are part of God's 'Creation', however mixed up and disabled we may be when it comes to understanding who we are, how we fit, and what 'God' is all about.

It seems God is willing and able to work with this, not according to our demands and ideas, but remaining true to God's nature, even when that results in our complete misunderstanding and wilful misrepresentation. Love produces Humility and Grace.

We demand God dances to our tune, but Jesus pointed out the folly of playing that game, because for some the only tune they want to play is the one that suits them: 'I want a loving God; but now I want an angry God; and now I don't want any God at all,...'

The horror is all our own, and we smear it on liberally to anything we cannot control or understand.

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Komensky
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quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
I'm not saying God was uninvolved in 'the Bible', but that does not require any bizarre notions of automatic writing.

'The Spirit goes where it wills', and the Spirit of God works within and through us---we are part of God's 'Creation', however mixed up and disabled we may be when it comes to understanding who we are, how we fit, and what 'God' is all about.

It seems God is willing and able to work with this, not according to our demands and ideas, but remaining true to God's nature, even when that results in our complete misunderstanding and wilful misrepresentation. Love produces Humility and Grace.

We demand God dances to our tune, but Jesus pointed out the folly of playing that game, because for some the only tune they want to play is the one that suits them: 'I want a loving God; but now I want an angry God; and now I don't want any God at all,...'

The horror is all our own, and we smear it on liberally to anything we cannot control or understand.

Alisdair, this is nicely written. How do you find the 'voice of God'—for lack of a better expression—in the Bible? If God was 'involved', as you say, at what points and how?

K.

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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

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Alisdair
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quote:
How do you find the 'voice of God'—for lack of a better expression—in the Bible? If God was 'involved', as you say, at what points and how?
I suppose I would answer that by saying: where ever we recognise 'Love' breaking through into the consciousness of the writer. And, if we need some guidance about the true nature of love, we are given Jesus as an example, and model---"Come, follow me".

I am very fond of Jonah's story. There is so much wrapped up in that scurrilous and entertaining tale of a man who knows God's will, who profoundly disagrees with it, and who at the end is still arguing vehemently with God about the rights and wrongs of God's actions. To me Jonah fails when he refuses to engage with God and runs away, but succeeds, and sees Love's capacity, not only for Mercy and Forgiveness (towards the people of the city), but also for Humility and Grace as God listens to (and puts up with) Jonah.

The story closes without a resolution, the conversation/argument is ongoing. To me that is one of the story's key points, the centrality of communication and relationship when engaging with God---being true to ourselves, and allowing God the same privilege, especially when we disagree, or don't understand.

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Komensky
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Thanks. Without meaning to sound flippant, you make it sound like the 'love' bits are from God and the the killing, rape, torture, slavery, misogynist, racist, infanticide stuff is either not from God, or from God and we don't understand it. It seems that you want to have it and not have it.

K.

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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

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Alisdair
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Well that's one way of looking at it, but realistically I wonder how you or I would expect people living out their lives as we do (or perhaps more pointedly as people are in Syria and Iraq today, where violence and death are routine facts of life), to interpret what they experience?

I get the impression you are looking for some kind of magic dispensation from 'reality' for the writers of the Bible. They wrote, as we would, according the the lights of their time and place. Is it surprising then that they see God in terms of summary justice and much shedding of blood; but there is no doubt that Love was present in their lives, as it is in ours.

Are we any better at receiving it and allowing it to flourish in our behaviour? No doubt in a few hundred years time people will look back on us in wonder at our barbarism, and fail to appreciate just how much like themselves we are.

If God is do you think God should be absent from that, unwilling to 'get his hands dirty'? What is Love worth if it shies away from the shitty reality of human behaviour?

[ 22. May 2015, 13:32: Message edited by: Alisdair ]

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